Book picks similar to
Night of Happiness by Tabish Khair
fiction
india
thriller
grief
Kansa: (Book 1 - The Killer Trilogy) The Professor Black Series
Prassant Kevin - 2017
Original. Spine-Chilling and a perfect start to the TRILOGY." OVER A SPAN OF TEN YEARS, HE KILLED FORTY PREGNANT WOMEN AND THEN VANISHED WITHOUT A TRACE. AFTER FIVE YEARS OF SILENCE, HE IS BACK AGAIN, SEEKING HIS NEXT VICTIM. ONLY ONE MAN CAN STOP HIM - PROFESSOR BLACK. Maher was found unconscious in the middle of the highway and later, in the hospital, she revealed that she had escaped from a killer's house. All the details and patterns matched the serial killer 'Kansa,' who had disappeared five years ago after murdering forty pregnant women. ACP Saargi Desai was assigned to the case. She appealed to her department to bring back Professor Black to help her catch the killer. The Professor, who had a haunting past that had kept him away from the world of crime and investigation for several years, was not willing to take on this case. But the ACP managed to convince him to get on board just for this one last time. Soon after agreeing to help, the Professor realized that for the first time in his life, he had met his match. As he dug deeper into the case, everything got dirtier, the stakes went higher, and nothing was what it seemed.
ADELAIDE, The Royal Mistress
Takalani M. - 2019
It follows an interesting life of a princess, Rotshidzwa, who doesn’t believe in love but is given an ultimatum to get married to a prince in order to access her father’s estate. The princess was wild and needed a tame, hence her father left a condition on his will – a condition which she did not want fulfil. Forced by her kind of lifestyle, she agreed to fake a marriage in the hope of receiving her portion of the estate and getting divorced afterwards. The prince agreed to enter into a fake marriage, provided that he gets a share of the money. Things did not go to plan as she was expected to prove the legitimacy of her marriage. In the process of proving the legitimacy of the marriage, she ends up falling in love with the prince and complicating his relationship with his partner named Adelaide. Their relationship ended up into a complicate love triangle.
The Illicit Happiness of Other People
Manu Joseph - 2012
His wife Mariamma stretches their money, raises their two boys, and, in her spare time, gleefully fantasizes about Ousep dying. One day, their seemingly happy seventeen-year-old son Unni—an obsessed comic-book artist—falls from the balcony, leaving them to wonder whether it was an accident. Three years later, Ousep receives a package that sends him searching for the answer, hounding his son’s former friends, attending a cartoonists’ meeting, and even accosting a famous neurosurgeon. Meanwhile, younger son Thoma, missing his brother, falls head over heels for the much older girl who befriended them both. Haughty and beautiful, she has her own secrets. The Illicit Happiness of Other People—a smart, wry, and poignant novel—teases you with its mystery, philosophy, and unlikely love story.
Beach Traffic: The Ocean Can Be Deadly
Judith Lucci - 2019
Kat’s childhood friend, Heidi is looking for great sex and a fantastic weekend hookup. But, things turned bad quickly when they learn a friend of theirs had been brutally attacked. Federal and local law enforcement officials are concerned about a vicious murder on the beach and the disappearance of five women.
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This Holey Life
Sophie Duffy - 2012
Stamped it hard. Stopped the past repeating itself. But what did I do? I did what Mum used to do in times of crisis. I left the room and went to put the kettle on.Vicky is a reluctant curate's wife, struggling to come to terms with her own bereavement and her husband's newfound faith. Then, one Boxing Day, a knock on the door brings her annoying big brother, his teenage son, and a cello into her life, turning her world upside down.With her small terrace house in Penge now fit to burst, Vicky struggles to manage her three children and the joys of everyday family life. As a new threat lurks behind every corner, hope appears in the most unlikely of circumstances. Enchanting, alternately funny, sad, and bittersweet, This Holey Life reminds us that it's not a race, it's a journey."Sophie Duffy is a real find."--Laurie Graham
Everything I Never Told You
Celeste Ng - 2014
Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue - in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James's case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the centre of every party. Little Fires Everywhere: Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
The Night of Broken Glass
Feroz Rather - 2018
While reams have been written on it - in human rights documents, academic theses, non-fiction accounts of the turmoil, and government and military reports - the effects of the violence on its inhabitants have rarely been rendered in fiction. Feroz Rather's The Night of Broken Glass corrects that anomaly. Through a series of interconnected stories, within which the same characters move in and out, the author weaves a tapestry of the horror Kashmir has come to represent. His visceral imagery explores the psychological impact of the turmoil on its natives - Showkat, who is made to wipe off graffiti on the wall of his shop with his tongue; Rosy, a progressive, jeans-wearing 'upper-caste' girl who is in love with 'lower-caste' Jamshid; Jamshid's father Gulam, a cobbler by profession who never finds his son's bullet-riddled body; the ineffectual Nadim 'Pasture', who proclaims himself a full-fledged rebel; even the barbaric and tyrannical Major S, who has to contend with his own nightmares. Grappling with a society brutalized by the oppression of the state, and fissured by the tensions of caste and gender, Feroz Rather's remarkable debut is as much a paean to the beauty of Kashmir and the courage of its people as it is a dirge to a paradise lost.
The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
Fatima Bhutto - 2013
This land is also home to a three-dimensional chessboard of seemingly endless war — American drones killing the Taliban; Sunni Muslims bombing Shia Muslims; and an underground, generations-old fight for independence from the central government.Three brothers, who adopt the different ways of life from each other after their father's death, meet for breakfast. Soon after, the eldest, Aman Erum, recently returned from America, hails a taxi to the local mosque. The second, Sikandar, a doctor, goes to check in at his hospital. His troubled wife, does not join the family that morning. No one knows where Mina goes these days. And the youngest, the idealist, Hayat, leaves for town on a motorbike. Seated behind him is a beautiful, fragile girl, whose life and thoughts are overwhelmed by the war that has enveloped the place of her birth.Three hours later their day will end in devastating circumstances.The Shadow of the Crescent Moon chronicles the lives of five young people trying to live and love in a world on fire. Individuals are pushed to make terrible choices. And, as the events of this single morning unfold, one woman is at the centre of it all.
Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children
Dave Newman - 2012
The novel tries to capture the humanity and heartbreak of one man's struggle to navigate the vicissitudes of life as a working writer in America.
The Rice Mother
Rani Manicka - 2002
At fourteen, she finds herself traded in marriage to a stranger across the ocean in the fascinating land of Malaysia. Duped into thinking her new husband is wealthy, she instead finds herself struggling to raise a family with a man too impractical to face reality and a world that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful. Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to wrest from the world a better life for her daughters and sons and to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength.By sheer willpower Lakshmi survives the nightmare of World War II and the Japanese occupation -- but not unscathed. The family bears deep scars on its back and in turn inflicts those wounds on the next generation. But it is not until Lakshmi's great-granddaughter, Nisha, pieces together the mosaic of her family history that the legacy of the Rice Mother bears fruit.
Queen of Dreams
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - 2004
Rakhi, a young painter and single mother, is struggling to come to terms with her relationship with ex-husband Sonny, a hip Bay Area DJ, and with her dream-teller mother, who has rarely spoken about her past or her native India. Rakhi has her hands full, juggling a creative dry spell, raising her daughter, and trying to save the Berkeley teahouse she and her best friend Belle own. But greater challenges are to come. When a national tragedy turns her world upside down and Rakhi needs her mother’s strength and wisdom more than ever, she loses her in a freak car accident. But uncovering her mother’s dream journals allows Rakhi to discover her mother’s long-kept secrets and sacrifices–and ultimately to confront her fears, forge a new relationship with her father, and revisit Sonny’s place in her heart.
Shalimar the Clown
Salman Rushdie - 2005
It is an epic narrative that moves from California to Kashmir, France, and England, and back to California again. Along the way there are tales of princesses lured from their homes by demons, legends of kings forced to defend their kingdoms against evil. And there is always love, gained and lost, uncommonly beautiful and mortally dangerous.
As Sweet as Honey
Indira Ganesan - 2013
The island is filled with exotic flora and fauna and perfumed air. A large family compound is presided over by a benign, stalwart grandmother. There is a very tall South Asian heroine with the astonishing un-Indian name of Meterling, who has found love at last in the shape of a short, round, elegant Englishman who wears white suits. There are also numerous aunts, uncles, and young cousins—among them, Mina, grown now, and telling this story of a marriage ceremony that ends with a widowed bride who, in the midst of her grief, discovers she is pregnant. While enjoying their own games and growing pains, Mina and her young cousins follow every nuance of gossip, trying to puzzle out what is going on with their favorite aunt, particularly when the groom’s cousin arrives from England and begins to woo her. As Meterling—torn between Eastern and Western ideas of love and family, duty and loyalty—struggles to make a new life, we become as entranced with this family, its adventures and complications, as Mina is. And with her we celebrate a time and place where, although sometimes difficult, life was for the most part as sweet as honey.
It Should've Been Me
ReShonda Tate Billingsley - 2016
The problem is Hollywood doesn’t know that just yet…..and since her bills aren’t paying themselves, Tamara signs on to star in the new stageplay, It Should’ve Been Me. Get in, get out, get paid…that’s all Tamara wants to do. But her co-stars – including Donovan Dobbs, her ex that left her at the altar and Camille Woods, a young starlet with a serious grudge – could make this the worst decision Tamara’s ever made. Whatever it takes… Playwright/producer Gwen Tanner Weinstein has decided if her neglectful husband can’t give her love, she’ll take his money. And use it to make her stageplay dreams come true. She’s put together an amazing cast, sold out shows across the country and is ready to take her rightful reign as one of the top play producers in the country. If only she can keep the drama contained to the stage….and that sexy young merchandising guy out of her bed…. From shady crew members, to unscrupulous paparazzi, It Should’ve Been Me is bound to be turned into real life drama that will rival anything that could ever happen on the stage.